Europa Universalis IV - Pre-order Deal

Now I won't be posting to much news on the frontpage for Europa Universalis IV, but this deserves frontpage news. Paradox Interactive has announced two pre-order bonuses you don't want to miss.

Players who pre-order Europa Universalis IV will be given a free copy of critically acclaimed strategy/RPG Crusader Kings II, Paradox’s hit title of diplomacy, dynasties, and double-dealing set in the Middle Ages, to add to their own library or to give to a friend.

Early adopters will also receive a new Saved Game Converter for Crusader Kings II, which will read the details of a saved game from a Crusader Kings II and convert that into a game that can be played in Europa Universalis IV. Fans of Crusader Kings II will be able to maintain the empires they have established and guide them through the age of exploration in an all-new strategic experience, continuing their personal stories of expansion and conquest.

Both the saved converter and copy of Crusader Kings II will be available as pre-order bonuses on August 1, and players that have already pre-purchased Europa Universalis IV will receive these additional bonuses. Strategy fans can prepare for the long road to conquest by pre-ordering Europa Universalis IV, details on all pre-order bonuses can be found here: www.europauniversalis4.com/buy

To demonstrate how converted saved games will work in Europa Universalis IV, Paradox will be showing off the converter in a live stream on Twitch.tv. Eager conquerors can tune in on July 30 at 11 a.m. PDT (6 p.m. GMT, 7 p.m. BST, 8 p.m CEST). The stream will be live at http://twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
How such a small team manages to recycle so much and convince people it's all new - over and over - is amazing

I mean, you could say the same thing of pretty much any game with sequels. To me, all shooters are the same, while RPGs are very different from each other, but I'm sure shooter lovers would say exactly the opposite.

Personally, after learning about them in Rome Universalis, I fell in love with Paradox strategy games. I consider EU3 my favorite game of all time (and I'm an RPG gamer primarily), and Crusader Kings 2 is really awesome too. Eventually after playing 200+ hours of each, all you want is the same game with some different rules and settings, so you can plunge 200 more hours trying different countries and goals.

Originally Posted by wolfing
I mean, you could say the same thing of pretty much any game with sequels. To me, all shooters are the same, while RPGs are very different from each other, but I'm sure shooter lovers would say exactly the opposite.

No, I don't think you can do that at all.

SOME sequels, sure, but there are many developers making a serious effort to change fundamentals.

Paradox are not among them.

Personally, after learning about them in Rome Universalis, I fell in love with Paradox strategy games. I consider EU3 my favorite game of all time (and I'm an RPG gamer primarily), and Crusader Kings 2 is really awesome too. Eventually after playing 200+ hours of each, all you want is the same game with some different rules and settings, so you can plunge 200 more hours trying different countries and goals.

Nothing wrong with that - and good for you.

But if you're trying to tell me you're not playing essentially the same game in a slightly new dressing (think EA Sports titles) - then I'm not convinced

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
SOME sequels, sure, but there are many developers making a serious effort to change fundamentals.

Depends what you mean by fundamentals. EU 4 has refinements and new ideas associated with making the impact of decisions more visual - rather than moving sliders around and not being able to gauge what you are impacting, which makes Vicky 2 so hard to get into, for instance.

I really appreciate the model that Paradox and Stardock have adopted of progressively refining their ideas, and deepening the gameplay. Would very much like to see other companies adopt a similar approach, rather than the fire and forget approach most adopt with their games. What's also good is that they firmly target gamers who aren't afraid of a little complexity rather than dumbing down their games to try and appeal to everyone.

You like Civ games, which is fine, but that formula has hardly changed since Sid's original. In fact I'd probably rather play Civ or Alpha Centauri to many of the newer releases, which add little to the gameplay from my POV.

Originally Posted by Roq
Depends what you mean by fundamentals. EU 4 has refinements and new ideas associated with making the impact of decisions more visual - rather than moving sliders around and not being able to gauge what you are impacting, which makes Vicky 2 so hard to get into, for instance.

Frankly, I haven't followed EU4 that closely. I gave up after Hearts of Iron 3 - which was a huge mess upon release.

I've played 5-6 Paradox games - and though I recognise some evolution - I think it's shamelessly minor.

Then again, I'm not exactly their biggest fan.

I really appreciate the model that Paradox and Stardock have adopted of progressively refining their ideas, and deepening the gameplay. Would very much like to see other companies adopt a similar approach, rather than the fire and forget approach most adopt with their games. What's also good is that they firmly target gamers who aren't afraid of a little complexity rather than dumbing down their games to try and appeal to everyone.

Stardock isn't putting the same game out over and over, though. Well - I suppose you could count Fallen Enchantress - but given its dismal launch failure (Elemental) - it kinda makes sense that they're trying to make up for it.

You like Civ games, which is fine, but that formula has hardly changed since Sid's original. In fact I'd probably rather play Civ or Alpha Centauri to many of the newer releases, which add little to the gameplay from my POV.

I'm not a particularly big fan of Civ games - I just think they're better than EU games.

But that's ok.

I think the Civ fomula is largely intact - but in terms of everything else - there is a lot more evolution and refinement present in each new Civ iteration. They also look and move very differently at the core, which gives each of them their own unique flavor.

Just look at how Civ 5 moved from stacks to single unit per tile - and moved to an entirely new hex-based map. The game is really very different from Civ 4 in several fundamental ways.

Then again, they're bigger and they're not releasing a new game every 3-6 months.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
I gave up after Hearts of Iron 3 - which was a huge mess upon release.

Hearts of Iron has the steepest learning curve of any of the Paradox games. I haven't played it since HOI 1, so I can't comment on the later iterations. Crusader Kings 2 OTOH is a totally different game and much more accessible.

What we are hoping for from EU 4, I think, is a game with no loss of depth (over EU 3), but with a less steep learning curve, a better interface and more immediate visual feedback on the effects of actions in the game. Perhaps some improved mechanisms for managing dispersed holdings. There is no need for a fundamental change in the genre.

As for the lack of stacking in recent Civ games. That's a step in the wrong direction, from a strategy POV because it increases micromanagement of battles; and it's a very gamey mechanism that has nothing to do with simulation. That is certainly something I'd hate to see in Paradox's grand strategy games. Besides that is hardly a "fundamental" innovation, since it's just totally obvious you can stack or not… Hex based maps are as old as war games are…

Originally Posted by killias2
DArtagnan, I was no more dismissive of you than you were of wolfing. He gave you an argument, and you basically said "No." But I guess you don't like being dismissed yourself?

I disagreed with him - and being "dismissed" by you is sort of pleasant. Well, it's certainly amusing - so do keep it up

In any case, you don't know the games. Why even argue it with you? The idea that CK2 is more of the same, while Civ V is some sort of revolution is a joke. I've already fed the troll too much here.

First, you need to learn to read. Then we can have a discussion about this.

I know the games very well - and I've yet to call Civ 5 anything like a revolution.

Originally Posted by Roq
As for the lack of stacking in recent Civ games. That's a step in the wrong direction, from a strategy POV because it increases micromanagement of battles; and it's a very gamey mechanism that has nothing to do with simulation. That is certainly something I'd hate to see in Paradox's grand strategy games. Besides that is hardly a "fundamental" innovation, since it's just totally obvious you can stack or not… Hex based maps are as old as war games are…

Well, I'm not saying that Civ 5 changes are better for YOU - but they result in a DIFFERENT game.

I consider hex-based and non-stacking significant changes - but I can't really do anything about you not agreeing with me.

I'm not saying hex-based gaming is new - but it's certainly new in Civilization.

I haven't said anything about Civ 5 being "new" - just different from other Civ games.

For me, the biggest letdown initially was that the game shipped with loads of bugs and felt like it had a memory leak on my system that would bring it to a crawl after a relatively short amount of play time. Fortunately since then the game has had a couple of patches, and the last one along had literally hundreds of fixes to issues from AI to bugs to balancing and so on. After the 1.2 patch I never had a single issue with apparent bugs or performance degradation.

But the game itself was pretty amazing - super deep and involved. And by the time I reviewed the Mac version it was super clean.

HoI 3 and EU 3 had similar problems, they both where messes on initial release, they both lived up to their potential after 2 expansions.Luckily Victoria II, CK II and Sengoku where pretty clean on release so I am confident EU IV will be too.

Originally Posted by Nameless one
HoI 3 and EU 3 had similar problems, they both where messes on initial release, they both lived up to their potential after 2 expansions.Luckily Victoria II, CK II and Sengoku where pretty clean on release so I am confident EU IV will be too.

Yeah, definitely. I remember being vaguely disappointed by EUIII, but the expansions really brought it together. On top of that, CK2 just blew me away. CK1 was cool in theory but just wasn't put together right. CK2 really brought all of Paradox's experience and resources together and hit it out of the park. It looks like EUIV will do likewise!

Originally Posted by cptbarkey
11k posts and you only just figured that out?

Crusader Kings is about as fun as watching paint dry. What remote RPG elements that exist in it are superficial at best. The game is purely click, next turn, wait for random event to happen.

Its not a game, its rolling dice ten thousand times.

I'll agree with you that it's not really an RPG. Beyond that, obviously, there's room for disagreement. I find it one of the most compelling narrative generating strategy games I've played, but I understand it's not for everyone.

Luckily for me I started playing Paradox games after they were perfectly playable. Rome already had the first (and only) expansion so if it was buggy on release, I didn't get that. After that I played EU3 "Complete" (first 2 or 3 expansions included), and it played beautifully, then I got the following expansions which just made an awesome game 'awesomer'. After that I got Sengoku, which wasn't my cup of tea but was perfectly fine at release. Then the pure gold that is CK2, not a single bug except for imbalances here and there at release, and with each major DLC just kept getting better and better. And now EU4.

On the other hand, I did try HoI3 after a bunch of expansions, think it was a Steam "HoI 3 gold" or something, but that game crossed the threshold of complexity for my taste, too much for my feeble mind. Also tried Victoria 2, and it didn't have any bugs or anything, but I much prefer the medieval era over the industrial revolution, so it didn't click for me.